George Floyd/Black Lives Matter Protests

[Falcor Roar]

I agree this Kyle Rittenhouse lad has just been a bit daft. All he had to do was go through his police training and get his badge before shooting those black lads then everything would have been fine.

[Mark Connolly]

2 minutes ago, Falcor Roar said:

I agree this Kyle Rittenhouse lad has just been a bit daft. All he had to do was go through his police training and get his badge before shooting those black lads then everything would have been fine.

"He didn't go in to do him, he just mistimed it. He's not that sort of player."

[ICTChris]

I don't know if it's just the way it gets reported but I get the impression the police over here spend a lot of effort infiltrating environmental groups compared to fascists.

I think these far right, neo-Nazi groups are all infiltrated to bursting point. Half the members are probably cops or informants in some of them.

Also, I can’t see any policemen forming committed romantic relationships and having children with the members of C18 while undercover, although maybe I need to be more open minded.

[ICTChris]

Here’s a Twitter thread about the shooting from a New York Times reporter who has analysed a number of live streams.

[madwullie]

18 minutes ago, Falcor Roar said:

I agree this Kyle Rittenhouse lad has just been a bit daft. All he had to do was go through his police training and get his badge before shooting those black lads then everything would have been fine.

Someone on twitter arguing that he isn't a white supremacist because the people he shot weren't black. The depths to which people will stoop to feel like they're winning an argument are pretty grim. 

"Just answer me this - what race were the people he shot. Discussion over: period"  

[Inanimate Carbon Rod]

2 hours ago, MixuFruit said:

I don't know if it's just the way it gets reported but I get the impression the police over here spend a lot of effort infiltrating environmental groups compared to fascists.

Id disagree. Both are high priority, but theres different considerations, if you have an enivronmental group threatening to essentially shut down airports (well probably at any other time than just now) and critical infrastructure or blocking access roads in cities including the pathways of ambulances etc, then that has serious consequences. Id say the vast majority of people support the general ideas behind slowing/eradicating climate change but disagree with the methods used by some of the more extreme groups. On the whole people in these environmental groups though tend to be very pleasant people to engage with. 
On the far right I would disagree that it’s not a priority, it really is, I think though that because a lot of the work done isnt always in the public eye and the actions of these groups arent always visible then you cant measure the two comparatively. 

[welshbairn]

2 minutes ago, MixuFruit said:

I just thought it was funny that one cause is very prominent in the public consciousness in this regard and another isn't.

Which one?

[Boo Khaki]

32 minutes ago, DA Baracus said:

If anyone actually tried to get their guns off of them they'd fight to the death.

I know, and that's why it needs dealt with ASAP. 

They might be civilians, but generally speaking, when you start waving kit around, somebody else turns up with the next level gear. The fact these guys are now congregating openly in groups makes me think it's only a matter of time before somebody rolls up in a Humvee or such, with a few homemade adaptations, something seriously beefy on the roof, and wipes 20 of these clowns out in the blink of an eye. 

Not that I'd lose any sleep to be honest, but the way they are behaving, openly congregating and loitering, constitutes an escalation in itself. How long are they going to get away with antagonising people, shooting the odd protester, and generally acting like aggressive dickheads before somebody cracks and says 'f**k this'. Somebody with the hardware to make these twats look like the incels playing the hardman that they are. It's not as if there isn't serious kit in public hands in the US.

[welshbairn]

18 minutes ago, ICTChris said:

Here’s a Twitter thread about the shooting from a New York Times reporter who has analysed a number of live streams.
 

 

 

 

"What did he do?.

"Shot someone."

"Get his ass."

Fine upstanding citizens imo.

[D.A.F.C]

Going back to my comment about Ian Wright I have to say I’m delighted that Charlie Nicholas and his fellow morons are going to be replaced by a more diverse, less stupid bunch of pundits.

[Gaz]

37 minutes ago, Mark Connolly said:

"He didn't go in to do him, he just mistimed it. He's not that sort of player."

"If anything, he's shot them too well".

[Newbornbairn]

3 minutes ago, MixuFruit said:

environmentalists. There's been a number of scandals involving undercover police lying to women and living with them in some cases, when the woman has though it was a genuine relationship. I'm not saying it hasn't also happened with far right infiltration, just that if it has, it hasn't been exposed in the way it has with environmentalists. On the face of it that makes it look like the police have been prepared to do this kind of thing for groups largely of the left, and perhaps not from the right. If you look at the list of infiltrated organisations in this article it seems like right wing ones don't really figure.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UK_undercover_policing_relationships_scandal

Maybe left wing women are easy? 

[BFTD]

3 minutes ago, NewBornBairn said:

Maybe left wing women are easy? 

Maybe right-wing women are...

You know, I'm not going to finish that thought.

[Inanimate Carbon Rod]

10 minutes ago, MixuFruit said:

environmentalists. There's been a number of scandals involving undercover police lying to women and living with them in some cases, when the woman has though it was a genuine relationship. I'm not saying it hasn't also happened with far right infiltration, just that if it has, it hasn't been exposed in the way it has with environmentalists. On the face of it that makes it look like the police have been prepared to do this kind of thing for groups largely of the left, and perhaps not from the right. If you look at the list of infiltrated organisations in this article it seems like right wing ones don't really figure.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UK_undercover_policing_relationships_scandal

The sarcastic in me questions ‘would you want to shag a nazi?’  
 

But no in serious terms I totally disagree with that having happened, its despicable and inexcusable. Yes the people may have developed feelings etc environmentalists ey. Seem to be decent, principled folks so its possible to see why the relationship happened, but regardless of that its wrong. 

on a purely practical basis though in terms of the make up of these undercover teams, which were back at the time in question mostly made up of male heterosexual officers and the make up of most of the far right groups being male and quite largely homophobic its easy to see why we’re not seeing much recording of relationships between those.

[welshbairn]

10 minutes ago, MixuFruit said:

environmentalists. There's been a number of scandals involving undercover police lying to women and living with them in some cases, when the woman has though it was a genuine relationship. I'm not saying it hasn't also happened with far right infiltration, just that if it has, it hasn't been exposed in the way it has with environmentalists. On the face of it that makes it look like the police have been prepared to do this kind of thing for groups largely of the left, and perhaps not from the right. If you look at the list of infiltrated organisations in this article it seems like right wing ones don't really figure.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UK_undercover_policing_relationships_scandal

There are quite a few attractive women in influential positions in the environmental movements, can't think of any apart from girlfriends who keep their fackin maoths shat on the far right, apart from some absolute boilers. Maybe the undercover cops just find green babes more easy going?

[welshbairn]

34 minutes ago, MixuFruit said:

 

These points make sense where the infiltration involved sexual relationships, however I believe I'm right in saying these were the minority of cases? There's a long list of organisations on that wiki page and they don't all correspond to a male policeman having a relationship with a female activist. I'm less interested in the ethics of those police that did form a relationship as it goes without saying it was unacceptable, more just I find it weird there's not much in that list that is far right.

That list is nearly all from last century, I'd imagine and hope they'd be targeting more far right groups these days, whatever the institutional bias.

https://www.ucpi.org.uk/who-is-involved/#police

Edited August 27, 2020 by welshbairn

[Sherrif John Bunnell]

HB even being mocked by The Onion now

https://www.theonion.com/blue-lives-matter-supporters-say-kyle-rittenhouse-not-r-1844869225

“Do we sympathize with this 17-year-old police admirer’s desire to live out a long-nurtured militia-man fantasy of patrolling the streets and administering justice? Certainly. Does the real blame ultimately lie with the people who were shot for failing to obey his orders? Of course. Nonetheless, we cannot condone Rittenhouse’s decision to pull the trigger without a badge.”

[Gaz]

Maybe no-one wants to volunteer to infiltrate far-right groups because then you'd need to live with and pretend to be friends with folk on the far-right?

[welshbairn]

1 minute ago, Gaz said:

Maybe no-one wants to volunteer to infiltrate far-right groups because then you'd need to live with and pretend to be friends with folk on the far-right?

It would be a stretch to find a volunteer to shag Nigel Farage.

[Inanimate Carbon Rod]

6 minutes ago, MixuFruit said:

I suppose the point I'm trying to make is we're maybe living today with the consequences of not treating these groups in the past as needing the same attention as the "threat" posed by anti 3rd Heathrow runway protestors or whatever. 

The dynamic of both types of groups makes that a more complex comparison, on the whole groups like the environmentalist groups are easier to infiltrate in terms of placing someone into them as they are in essence open groups keen to grow. In far right groups membership is closely vetted and it would be more difficult to put someone in undercover, its more likely to be that with far right groups they rely on other intellogence gathering options like sources within the group or types of surveillance.